EU and Ukraine hail closer ties, extension of Russia sanctions

With recently approved visa-free travel to Europe, Ukrainians have finally broken their historic chains to the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Thursday.

Stopping in Brussels to meet European Council President Donald Tusk on his return from a trip to Washington, Poroshenko boasted of robust support from the West for Ukraine’s ongoing conflict with Russia and he expressed gratitude for the EU’s plan to extend economic sanctions against Moscow.

“These are historic days for Ukraine when after receiving the visa-free regime we say the final farewell to the U.S.S.R. and the Russian Empire,” Poroshenko said, standing with Tusk for a joint statement after their meeting. “Poland, the Baltic states, other countries of Eastern Europe did that 20-25 years ago.”

With EU leaders set to give their approval to another six-month extension of the sanctions at a summit on Thursday, Tusk and Poroshenko cited increasing close economic and political ties, including a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement that will come fully into force by September 1.

In 2013, Russia’s opposition to that free trade agreement and an accompanying political association agreement were at the center of a dispute that led to months of sustained street protests in Ukraine, the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych, and Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea.

The bloody and continuing separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine also grew out of that conflict.

Poroshenko and Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, were in high spirits and each gave a statement in Ukrainian before switching to English.

Poroshenko, in gushing and enthusiastic tones, described his visit to Washington, where he met with President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. Poroshenko said the U.S. had committed to maintaining sanctions on Russia until the implementation of the Minsk 2 peace agreement intended to halt the violence in east Ukraine.

The U.S. Congress has also introduced new sanctions aimed at further punishing Russia, though that unilateral step has angered some European countries because the sanctions target a Russian pipeline project, Nord Stream 2, which involves a number of European nations and businesses.

“The United States introduced new sanctions and confirmed that all sanctions remain in place until the full implementation of Minsk,” Poroshenko said.

In Washington, White House press secretary Sean Spicer confirmed the commitment on the U.S. side.

“Part of the reason that there are sanctions is because until they are out of eastern Ukraine, we’re going to continue to have sanctions on Russia,” Spicer said at his briefing on Wednesday. “It was something that obviously came up in discussion with the president today, and we’ll continue to advocate for that.”

The U.S. has previously sought to take on a greater role in ending the Ukraine conflict, but Poroshenko said after the Washington visit that he saw no need to change the so-called “Normandy format” by which Germany and France helped to broker the Minsk 2 agreement, .

“We do not consider it necessary to change the Normandy format and have some sort of parallel track to the Minsk process,” Poroshenko said in a statement, though he praised the U.S. for wanting to do more.

Jodocus5

This sort of thing puts the EU firmly in the crosshairs of a certain former KGB colonel by the name of V. Putin. Currenty the de-facto head of state of Russia.

As a former KGB officer he will be extremely well versed in the the use of intelligence services to destabilise countries or federations he doesn’t like.

Given that Russian intelligence service agents have been identified as meddling in the US election, I wonder what they are doing within the EU.

Posted on 6/22/17 | 5:04 PM CEST

Theo

Ukraine is still a state full of corruption.Every government before had this problem and it’s not been solved.The US has always urged the EU to make Ukraine a EU member. They have their own economic and strategic interests.They want to sell to Europe their own natural gas.Because fracking is nonprofit business at the moment.Who benefits from a free trade agreement? Do we really need another problem? One thing at a time.